Sgt. Charles Tesser's WWII Signal Corps Photos

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By Amy White on November 8, 2018

The first time Lewis Tesser saw the collection of photographs his father, Sgt. Charles Tesser, took during World World II as a Signal Corps photographer for the U.S. Army, it was the 1960s and he was just a teenager. Fifty years later, he found the photos again, shortly after his father’s death in 2004. In this year’s edition of New York Super Lawyers magazine, we featured the story of how Tesser turned those photos into a book, In The Thick of Things. In honor of Veterans Day, we asked Tesser, a business litigation attorney at Tesser Ryan & Rochman, to pick a few of his favorites to feature in the images below. They’re presented with his father’s original captions from 1944 and 1945.

An American infantry unit moves through the snow and mud on its way to the front near Eschweiler, Germany. Thanksgiving Day, 1944.

Three members of an armored unit look at an M-4 Tank that was knocked out in the mud by a German Armor Piercing shell. November 26, 1944

84th Division cannoneers prepare to fire on enemy mortar positions. 105MM howitzer was hit by a German artillery shell. In repairing piece, a 57mm gun trail was substituted. January 9, 1945

84th Division medics evacuate two wounded men on litters on hood of Jeep ambulance. January 9, 1945

PVT John S. Aguilar, of San Bernardino, California, bares his chest to winter cold as he shampoos his hair in open, using helmet. His companion howitzer crewmen huddle near fire to keep warm. January 16, 1945

Carrying their belongings on bicycles and carts, German evacuees return to their homes as the tide of battle rolls past their town toward the Rhine. Wegberg was taken by the 8th armored division of the 9th US Army. March 2, 1945

Doughboys attack at dawn. March 24, 1945

The Rhine seems very peaceful to this dead GI. He was one of many who failed to make the shore. March 24, 1945

Second man has been hit by Nazi machine gun fire from wooded area as his buddies keep up small arms fire in ditch. March 25, 1945

Soldiers of the 8th Armored Division, 9th US Army, round up German prisoners. French slave laborers, liberated when the town fell, come out to greet their American liberators. April 5, 1945

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